(Now an older pic but not much has changed except the shocks and some license plates...)
After a long battle, it's now set up with an alloy barrel and a 5-spd right-shift transmission, and working through the break-in. Slapped adjustable Hagons on there, too.
And it got a few treats today...
-Got a proper linkage rigged up on my rearset to replace the flipped-backwards shifter I'd been running; was too short and not shifting well for a few reasons. Looks more professional than anything else on the bike and shifts amazingly. I lost the one-up-four-down pattern I wanted to run, but am just happy I can ride it without a problem now.
-Adjusted my points gap, which fixed a bunch of problems I was attributing to an overly rich pilot jet. Still gotta re-jet but the bike is behaving much better in the meantime.
-Opened my primary to seek the source of a bit of occasional disconcerting noise and grinding sensation. Found the chain adjuster had slipped, and the primary was running too slack. Then noticed that the chain adjuster has a provision for an underside adjuster bolt...my previous "mechanic" had not used one and the adjuster was collapsed to the slackest position. Got a bicycle chainring bolt from my parts box and voila, I'm no longer having nightmares about my alternator or clutch detonating.
-Sanded and hand-painted (ie, poorly) a chrome exhaust strut to match the green frame.
Still need to:
-Obtain new fork sliders and install my cartridge emulator valves
-Re-jet the pilot
-Seal up the reducers between my muffler and header, which allow some exhaust to puff out.
-Re-locate rearsets to a more mid-set position. Could be difficult based in where I wanna have them. Don't want to weld tabs on the frame so maybe I'll just leave as-is...this is why the guy who was supposed to mid-set them put them where they are in the first place!
-Change my contact breaker unit, as this one just seems to have seen better days. All the fixing nuts are chewed up beyond usefulness and the points look a bit ground down.
-Rig up a shorter rear brake actuating arm to help scale it down to work better; the rearset "arm" isn't as tall as the stock brake lever. Should be able to cut off the forked adjuster barrel end, drill a 6mm hole in the stub of the actuator, and run a rod with quick-disconnect clevis ends on both sides to tie it all together.
-Receive, paint, and install new swingarm...this one seems a bit twisted to the left, and the fork ends were seemingly partially ground out by someone at some point for some unknown reason.
-Try to find an inner chaincase that will let me mount my stator directly to it...the arrangement in the current one uses a sort of adapter ring which is torture to deal with. When you bolt the stator to the ring, it precludes access to the cap screws that fix the adapter to the chaincase. But if you fix the ring to the chaincase first, you can no longer access one of the bolt heads which attaches the stator to the ring!
-Go to a high-quality plug and coil
-Try in earnest to mount a plastic tire licker for use in the monsoon season.
-Eventually, re-wire this whole sucker. Everything was set up by the "mechanic" in Indian fashion...wires twisted together, no solder or positive connections, everything in a real rat's nest. I do have the deluxe package, though...lots of electrical tape covering it all!
-While I'm at that, obtain a tail light with brake light capacity and rig up the switch in the tool box.
-Decide, eventually, if I want to keep the cafe/tracker tail or go with a more vintage flat-tracker look using a fender and solo seat. If I keep the tail section I'm gonna look at a more elegant mounting solution.